Americas (English Edition)

Articles from Vol. 60, No. 2, March-April

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN CENTRAL AMERICA and the Dominican Republic, several specialized computer resource centers are offering people with visual impairments the opportunity to learn new technologies. The project--initiated by the OAS and the...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN THE LAST FEW years, the number of Latin American and Caribbean students pursuing university or graduate studies in the United States has been on the decline--primarily due to the lack of sufficient funds. An OAS program...

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] THE GINSENG PLANT is known by many names--"green gold," for its monetary value as an herbal medicine; "tiger of the plant world," for its elusiveness and rarity; "separated limbs" or garentoquen in the Iroquois language,...

IF A WOMAN IN HER FIFTIES were to disembark today from a cruise ship in Suriname bent on scientific pursuits, no one would think it odd. But in 1699, when 52-year-old Maria Sibylla Merian arrived from Amsterdam to spend years unraveling the mysteries...

In over three decades of leading one of the busiest big bands of the Americas, Marcos Szpilman has experienced just about everything that can possibly happen when his nineteen-piece group sets out for yet another performance. There have been bus breakdowns,...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There was a time when animals roamed freely across a continental mass of healthy forests--a veritable ocean of green vegetation. Across the length and breadth of the Americas, these forests formed a massive chain of ecosystems...

Esmeralda was a mere thirteen-year-old adolescent in 1961, when she left Puerto Rico for the United States. She brought with her a vision of the island's landscapes and the clear waters of the Caribbean, but she also brought a dream for the future:...

As we continue to explore the beauty and diversity of our hemisphere, in this issue of Americas we also look at one of the urgent challenges ahead--climate change. Alejandro Balaguer's striking photos and his conversations with environmental experts...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The morning mist exhaled by the rainforest evaporates over the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, adding to the sense of mystery emitted by its massive stone walls. The sun filters through the clouds, casting its first light on...

VISITORS TO LA PAZ, Bolivia, in search of something truly out of the ordinary will want to put this mountain city's Mercado de las Brujas (Witches' Market) on their itinerary. Finding the fabled but small collection of vendors' shops and stalls, however,...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Julio Contreras has the hands of a giant. His hands were shaped by the mud of the Unguia marshland, roughened by the shrubs of San Onofre, burned under the Cartagena sun, and made invincible by the hardship of displacement....

THE FAMILIAR FACE peeks out from atop a stack of vintage pamphlets at San Telmo's Sunday flea market, graces book covers in store windows along busy Calle Florida, and greets customers from a hand-colored poster at the entrance to a boutique in the...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The night before I left my mother, I wrote a letter. "Querida Mami," it began. Querida, beloved, Mami, I wrote, on the same page as el hombre que yo amo, the man I love. I struggled with those words, because I wasn't certain...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this land of the Americas, for the pleasure and health of humankind, God created a fruit that is the very light of the sun transformed into juice, pulp, and sweetness. There is no more exquisite taste to the palate than...

PAUL ALCOCK, president of Northland Discovery Boat Tours, knows exactly what time will catch the attention of his clients as they approach one of the many colossal, seasonal gifts from Greenland to the Canadian province of Newfoundland. When his boat...

OVER THE NEXT few years, Panama will lead a concerted effort to ensure greater opportunities for people with disabilities In the Americas. Speaking to the OAS Permanent Council in January, Panamanian First Lady Vivian Fernandez de Torrijos said it...

"ONLY FIVE YEARS AGO, this conference would have been unimaginable," Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez told an international audience gathered in Cartagena de Indias. The occasion was the seventeenth meeting of the General Assembly of the United...